Scoring a double-century in a 40-over game is impressive by anyone's standards, but when a 12-year-old schoolgirl does it, people sit up and take notice. Step forward Mignon du Preez, who hit 16 sixes and 25 fours in an innings of 258, with a strike rate of over 200, in a provincial Under-13 match between Gauteng and North Gauteng.

Five years later she broke into the South African national side as a replacement for injured captain Shandre Fritz. She took her chance, scoring an unbeaten 55 from 69 in the washed-out fifth ODI against Pakistan in January 2007, and followed that up by sharing a South African record partnership of 224 (the fourth-highest of all time) with Johmari Logtenberg against Netherlands.

Having established herself as a reliable top-order batsman for South Africa, du Preez was entrusted with the captaincy in 2011 and went on to lead the side in 46 ODIs, 50 T20Is and one Test match. Under her captaincy, South Africa reached their first Women's World T20 semi-final in 2014 and achieved their first ODI series wins in India and Bangladesh.

Du Preez stepped down from the captaincy in June 2016, expressing a desire to focus more on her batting.ESPNcricinfo staff

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